A tale of two thorns in the ass

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

He's not free yet, but Assange is allowed a breath of fresh air... at least metaphorically.

Julian Assange: Sweden drops rape investigation

Watch the British police arrest him on the way to the airport. For what, you ask? For existing. Or more hilariously, for breaking bail on a non existent case. He has served a multi-year sentence. Even the cheapest lawyer would get him off the hook with ease. So that leaves extradition. I bet the US deep state still wants him to suffer an accident.

As for the so called other whistleblower...

Chelsea Manning, who leaked 700,000 documents to Wikileaks, released from prison

Traitor or hero? Heroine? Some have even called her mentally ill (you know how nice homophobes can be).

Don't know about all that; all I know is, if if he was careful in the information released then maybe you could've claimed it was heroic, but doing it wholesale put people in danger, and undermined US national interest without much return on investment as far as transparency goes. Even most open government folks would agree that some things should be held confidential if a state is to function.

Which brings us back to Assange. What do you think is his end-game? His most recent leaks have seemed to only serve Putin's interests, so I'm starting to get rather suspicious about his whole agenda.

Comments

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

I guess he found some aspects of skipping bail and hiding in an embassy to avoid accusations of sexual assault to be inconvenient. Somehow, both Labor and the Tories failed to address how to simplify going on the lam in their recent manifestos.

I actually think an organization like WikiLeaks can do a lot of good, it's too bad that Mr. Assange was associated with it.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Pretty disingenuous of Julian.

Claiming sanctuary to avoid trial ain't quite the same as being detained without charge. The end-result may be similar, but there is a difference in motive and intent.

In fact, as we all know to be true, the charges have only just been dropped, much to the chagrin of the lass who had laid them at his door.

All that self-imposed incarceration has definitely affected his ability to think anything other than purely subjectively. Add that to the sort of ego that thinks a condom is optional when his bed-partner insists otherwise makes him a bit difficult to feel sorry for.

Wikileaks would do better without him at the helm as he's taken it into the realm of direct political interference in elections, with interesting results. He may not forgive the folk who "put him in confinement" (obviously it was other folk conspiring to put him in an embassy in London - he wouldn't have chosen to seek sanctuary himself now, would he?) but few of the rest of us will forgive him for Trump/Pence.

And after the Hillary leak what did we find? That she appears to be a safer pair of hands than the Donald despite using an improper email account. Obviously she should have just tweeted everything or revealed secrets to Russian Ambassadors...

Oh well, you have to laugh.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Claiming sanctuary to avoid being "suicided", perhaps?

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Polonium tea seems more the way the folk he's hanging with behave. We'd just bore him to death eventually after decades with Eastenders and Corrie.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

And for that matter, even the Yanks didn't give Chelsea the chair.

I mean to say it's not as if Julian is black is it?

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is the part that really doesn't make me buy this angle. Chelsea wasn't suicided, she had her sentence commuted and was released, and she was the person who really represented the leak, WikiLeaks just acted as the messenger.

Mr. Assange was in custody in the UK for a bit, he was also running around both the UK and Sweden after the documents were released. He wasn't given the polonium tea or even bundled up by folks in black suits and stuffed aboard a waiting helicopter yet we're supposed to believe that this was an oversight that the CIA is just waiting to correct. It's not like he was difficult to find during this time, apparently, according to Mr. Assange, one of the CIA's assets got him into bed to make false claims of sexual assault but somehow failed to give him an injection of slow, painful death.

Being suspicious of the US government is of course not a bad thing, but when all of the verifiable evidence points the other direction, it's kinda hard to keep thinking the CIA is just waiting to pounce. I'd guess the Ecuadorians are more motivated to do him in at this point.

[garote]

I agree: If the Ecuadorians did him in, everyone would blame the CIA, including the Ecuadorians, and possibly the CIA as well!

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

And I understand, though not from experience, that Sweden is a relatively nice place to be a prisoner in comparison with either the US or the UK.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Poor old Julian's agenda has changed over the years, as most folk's do.

Sweden has dropped the rape case, true; and much to the consternation of the lass who brought the initial accusation - apparently she still wants her day in court. He has refused to answer that case because of the obvious extradition to US problems. So he has kept himself locked in the Embassy claiming sanctuary. It is his refusal to face the music over his sexual shenanigans which has kept him there, but that has been also made difficult due to the complications over extradition.

So the initial situation is really complicated. And from then on, in his confinement, he has gone increasingly mad. Maybe freedom will make him a bit better, but I doubt it. Also, He's never going to go free unless he actually escapes and flees the country - probably to Ireland and thence to Moscow.

It may be good for we British to prove incredibly incompetent at catching him, and unfortunately allowing him to escape through his own brilliance, genius, and planning. What we actually need is PCs Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy on duty on the moonless night he chooses to flit. Shaven head and a few wigs and false moustaches.... Tweeds and a Deerstalker... He could always pretend to be Benedict Cumberbatch doing research.

Then Dublin, then Moscow. Uncle Vlad's chaps better provide him with a few good passports. A passable Irish one would be a start.

We just want shot of the blighter. But not in a way that upsets the cousins.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

I think you Brits did a marvelous job of doing everything to look like you're trying to catch him without actually catching him. It was clearly the right strategy and was well executed.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Well it's either that, or get James Bond to off the blighter. Expediently.

And that's just not worth the diplomatic kerfuffle. And Julian once seemed a fairly decent sort of chap, unless I suppose you were in bed with him.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

It also appears as Julian has allegedly gotten away with it, that his alleged offence is becoming commonplace:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/22/stealthing-sex-trend-sexual-assault-crime (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/22/stealthing-sex-trend-sexual-assault-crime)

[oportet.livejournal.com]

What does he want? My guess is freedom. I may be oversimplifying - but what else is there? He has fame, money, power - freedom is all he lacks, and maybe he feels Putin is the quickest, easiest route to that (and really...he probably is)